One thing you should know about me is that I’m a talker… A BIG talker. I come from a long, long line of talkers, and I have lovingly passed the gene down to my daughters. My girls get it honestly, and they have managed to take talking to an even higher level that I could ever dream.
The next thing you should know about me is that I have absolutely no ‘stop gap’ from my brain to my mouth. If I think it, I say it… there is no filter, no prime time ‘2 second delay’ or a ‘hold your tongue’ button that I can press. And, much to my dismay, I don’t have a rewind button either. And, because of this, I will never win ‘Mother of the Year’… L
I take full responsibility for passing along the talking gene to my girls. My oldest came out of the womb talking. Being around adults constantly, she had a vocabulary of a 5 year old long before she was 2. So, when she started school, I decided that I would not be happy with the standard “how was your day at school” question followed by the typical answer “Good”. I devised a plan to get her talking. So every day when she came home from school, I would ask “What was the most exciting thing that happened today? “ At first, she would just shrug her shoulders and grin. But, she’s a fast learner. She knew every day that I was going to ask, so she would look for good things to talk about all day long. (Bahahaha I’m sneaky! Look for the good in each day? Who knew? ) In kindergarten, the stories started picking up some depth. By middle school, her answer would be “Well in first period blah blah blah….then in Second period…yada yada, and so on…. She would recap her day for an hour… If I interrupted, I would be met with “ I’m NOOOTTTT finished!’ She would take a huge frustrated breath, then start right where she left off.
Well… I’m a fast learner too! Since my girls are 8 years apart, I have the benefit of seeing how my parenting skills paid off on the first one. And, the ‘keep your kids talking theory’ was wearing me OUT! My youngest was probably the only kid in kindergarten that knew the meaning of the word succinct. “Please honey, give me the succinct version”. ‘OK honey, I want to hear all about your day, but I really need the succinct version”… OK, sweetie, Mommie needs to get back to work… can you tell me the Reader’s Digest version? ” Somehow, she’s still sweet…
But, sweet little girls turn into back talking teens at some point… and ooohhh… I don’t do well with sassy mouths. The sweet patient mom responses that come from the Mother of the Year moms have never entered my brain, and therefore do not exit my mouth. My first response is short and sweet - “Quit yer yackin’ and get crackin’. The short and sweet version of ‘Stop complaining and making excuses and get your behiney moving to do what I told you to do!’ That seems to be my answer to everything… I have numerous versions of this phrase… Quit yer slackin’ and get crackin’,,. Quit yer snackin’ and get crackin’… Quit your yackin’ and get snackin’…. Yep… Mother of the Year… cast your votes now.
Quit yer yackin’ and get crackin’…. I’ve said it so much that it has become our mantra. It’s just a southern version of Nike’s ‘Just do it”. My kids get the message… they not going to get anywhere back talking their mama, and they’re never going to get far in life if all they do is talk about it instead of actually living. Dreams may start with the talking but you’ll never get there till you start the walking… So how do you take a smart mouth remark to a smart mouth kid and make it a life lesson? …I just got lucky! Now… Quit yer yackin and get crackin…
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